One of the most important concerns of an amputee seeking to have an anatomically correct prosthetic restoration fabricated is the final coloration of the prosthesis so that it will adequately match the corresponding uninjured extremity and, therefor, be unnoticed by the general public. However, it a major expense and inconvenience for the amputee if he/she is required to travel long distances to the facility which fabricates the prosthesis. In order to avoid these problems, the amputee must use the services of a local prosthetist who must take photographs of the amputee's corresponding uninjured extremity and choose color samples which match certain areas of the amputee's extremity. These photographs and color sample information are then forwarded to a fabricating facility which specializes in anatomically correct prosthetic restoration. The fabricating artist must use this information to match the color of the prosthesis to the amputee's true extremity color.
If the photographs and color selections are of poor quality due to inadequate film, insufficient lighting, etc., the fabricating artist cannot properly match the prosthesis coloration to the amputee's actual color. The industry, therefore, has a need for an improved method which conveniently and accurately reveals the true color of the extremity on an amputee who is not present during the final coloration process
Heretofore, in the cooperative fabrication of anatomically correct prosthetic extremity restorations, it has been the common practice to produce photographs of the amputee's extremeties on a color-key background which includes only the primary or basic colors. Photographs produced from the use of these color-key backgrounds have a number of undesirable aspects. These photographs can only be used to determine whether the color-key background in the photograph is of the same color or shade as the original background, therefore limiting the comparison to the basic colors shown on the background. Also, human skin reflects light at a much different ratio than a flat surface which, in common practice, has a glossy finish. Furthermore, the current methods for selecting color samples requires that the prosthetist selects individual pieces of unmarked material for certain areas of the amputee's skin, mark or tag those pieces, and forward them to the fabricating facility. These pieces of prosthetic material can easily be lost of misnumbered. Another current method involves a collection of numbered prosthetic material swatches requiring that the prosthetist and the fabricator both have duplicate collections of the same prosthetic material swatches. These swatches, usually on a chain, can be cumbersome to use and generally have too few colors from which to make selections. Although these swatches can be discolored by light or chemicals and easily soiled, they are somewhat difficult to replace with exact duplicates since they are generally made in batches. Also, since the fabricating artist usually does not see the amputee, he must depend solely on the prosthetists ability to select colors accurately.
In addition to the aforementioned drawbacks, a photographic film is not available, for practical applications, which will perfectly reproduce the true colors in the actual extremity or colored background. As a result, the photographs received by the fabricating artist are usually too red, too green, etc. Therefore, they are never exactly the color of the amputee's extremity. This makes it necessary for the fabricating artist to estimate how much color adjustment to make based solely on the lack or abundance of the primary or basic colors on the color-key background as shown in the photographs.